Renewals

  • Resolved Nik

    (@nikbond)


    8 years, 2 months ago

    Hi there

    I have just one paid membership level set up to receive “recurring payments” on an annual basis which can be made either via PayPal or sent manually… however, I’m really confused as to how the renewal process works and wonder if you can clarify as follows –

    What I would LIKE to happen – 30 days prior to expiry, user gets sent a link to a renewal invoice that they can choose to pay either by sending a cheque (ie. manually) or by PayPal.

    Is this possible and if so, what settings do I need to pay attention to?
    Should the automated email be set to “Subscription before expires” OR “Payment before due” … and is there any difference between the two?

    When is the invoice for the next year’s subscription created? Is it 30 days prior or only on expiry (which is obviously not ideal)?

    When the email reminder is sent out, this currently sends them a link to their account page which has a link to “Change” their account, but ideally I’d like to send them a link to a page where they could immediately click on “Renew”. I’ve read something about a shortcode [renewform] but it does not seem to work for me…

    With many thanks in advance for any hints!

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • Plugin Support Dimitris – WPMU DEV Support

    (@wpmudev-support6)

    8 years, 1 month ago

    Is this possible and if so, what settings do I need to pay attention to?
    Should the automated email be set to “Subscription before expires” OR “Payment before due” … and is there any difference between the two?

    You can use any of these, or even both. One can inform member that next payment is coming up and after some days another email can inform member that expiration date is coming closer.

    When is the invoice for the next year’s subscription created? Is it 30 days prior or only on expiry (which is obviously not ideal)?

    Next invoice is being created actually by the time previous invoice/subscription is paid, so in your case this will be happening one year before. Member can pay for that at any time, before expiration.

    When the email reminder is sent out, this currently sends them a link to their account page which has a link to “Change” their account, but ideally I’d like to send them a link to a page where they could immediately click on “Renew”. I’ve read something about a shortcode [renewform] but it does not seem to work for me…

    You can forward them to a custom page with their own invoice, using the
    [ms-invoice] shortcode, but this would need some custom coding to get the proper invoice ID per member and subscription.

    Warm regards,
    Dimitris

    Thread Starter Nik

    (@nikbond)

    8 years, 1 month ago

    Hi Dimitris

    Many thanks for getting back to me.

    Next invoice is being created actually by the time previous invoice/subscription is paid, so in your case this will be happening one year before. Member can pay for that at any time, before expiration.

    I’m sure I must be misunderstanding this!

    Example: I have a member who signs up for annual membership today. He gets an invoice for 2018-2019 which he obviously pays to get access to the site. If he looks at his account details, the invoice shows as paid, but there’s certainly no sign of an invoice for 2019-2018 (and to be honest, it would be quite strange if there was.)

    I’ve also checked the database (as far as I can), I certainly can’t see a draft invoice or anything waiting to be issued so there’s no way he could “pay for that at any time” as you say.

    My question is therefore, at what point does that invoice actually become “available” ie. when is it generated? Is it at whatever date the reminder is sent out perhaps?

    You can forward them to a custom page with their own invoice, using the
    [ms-invoice] shortcode, but this would need some custom coding to get the proper invoice ID per member and subscription.

    This sounds like a good plan and I’ve tested by creating a “One day” membership so that I can see when the reminder gets sent out including the [ms-invoice] shortcode, however, this seems to link to the previous (paid) invoice not the new one that they need to pay. Is this perhaps because it’s only a one day membership and therefore it’s causing some confusion, or does this relate to the custom coding you mention and if so, can you give me any pointers as to how I go about this? (When live, I will only have one subscription/membership level.)

    In addition, when does the word “Renew” appear anywhere? Is that only AFTER a membership has actually expired?

    Also it seems that I can’t get the [renewform] shortcode to work. I’m not quite sure what that should generate, but it sounds as if it might be useful and what I’m looking for.

    With many thanks again. I really like your plug-in but damn it’s tricky to figure out. I guess that’s because it’s actually quite sophisticted once one can actually get the settings right 😉

    Thread Starter Nik

    (@nikbond)

    8 years, 1 month ago

    Oops… the line “but there’s certainly no sign of an invoice for 2019-2018” should of course read…”but there’s certainly no sign of an invoice for 2019-2020″ 😉

    Plugin Support Dimitris – WPMU DEV Support

    (@wpmudev-support6)

    8 years, 1 month ago

    Hey there @nikbond,

    hope you’re doing good today! 🙂

    My question is therefore, at what point does that invoice actually become “available” ie. when is it generated? Is it at whatever date the reminder is sent out perhaps?

    I’m really sorry for the confusion her as I think that I mis-guided you here.
    I had some more insights from our devs and seems that next invoice is being created when the actual subscription expires, so there’s no out-of-the-box way to pay upfront for next cycle of subscription.
    That’s the reason that you were also getting previous invoice in your one-day testing membership.

    I’d rather advise you to use the automatic recurring payments though, via PayPal Standard Gateway and of course the “before expire” emails, so your members know that the automatic payment will be triggered soon.

    In addition, when does the word “Renew” appear anywhere? Is that only AFTER a membership has actually expired?

    That’s true, you can only renew an expired subscription.

    Also it seems that I can’t get the [renewform] shortcode to work. I’m not quite sure what that should generate, but it sounds as if it might be useful and what I’m looking for.

    There’s no [renewform] shortcode in latest versions. You can find all available shortcodes in
    yourdomain.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=membership2-help&tab=shortcodes

    Warm regards,
    Dimitris

    Thread Starter Nik

    (@nikbond)

    8 years, 1 month ago

    Thank again for your reply Dimitris.

    I’d rather advise you to use the automatic recurring payments though, via PayPal Standard Gateway and of course the “before expire” emails, so your members know that the automatic payment will be triggered soon.

    I agree… for those members who are willing to set up recurring payments that looks as if it could work well, but some of our members prefer to pay by one-off PayPal or by sending us a bank payment/cheque (ie. manual) and as far as I can see, the only option for them is to wait until their membership expires and then pay the invoice that gets generated upon expiry. This is really not ideal as it means that if my understanding is correct and they don’t pay immediately, they’ll be excluded from the site until they do?

    I see I can set a “grace period” but at what point during that time does the invoice get generated eg. let’s say the membership is due to expire on 31st March and I set a grace period of 30 days… will the invoice be generated on 31st March or 30 days later?

    In case it isn’t clear, what I really want is for members (paying by manual or single payments) to be issued an invoice (on the expiry date) which they have 30 days to pay before getting excluded from the site. This really doesn’t seem like an unusual or complicated requirement but I can’t for the life of me see how to achieve. Do you have any suggestions at all?

    With many thanks in advance and hoping.
    Nik

    Plugin Support Dimitris – WPMU DEV Support

    (@wpmudev-support6)

    8 years, 1 month ago

    Hello there @nikbond,

    I’m sorry for the long waiting time here, it’s been a bit hectic in my end lately.

    I’ve already contacted our developers about this, in order to be 100% sure when/how this new invoice for a yearly membership will be created (and if there’s any way to change this time-frame).
    Will keep you posted here, as soon as possible! 🙂

    Warm regards,
    Dimitris

    Plugin Support Dimitris – WPMU DEV Support

    (@wpmudev-support6)

    8 years, 1 month ago

    Hey @nikbond,

    I’ve got some more feedback on this. It seems that invoice is generated some time before, but it’s based on the membership duration. For a one-year membership, it’s generated 5 days before the expiry date. But you can define a constant MS_PAYMENT_DELAY in the wp-config.php to add more days on top of the 5 days. So for 30 days in total, add the following line just above the /* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */ comment:
    define('MS_PAYMENT_DELAY', 25);

    Warm regards,
    Dimitris

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

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